When Paramount Pictures brought the hit Broadway musical Grease to the big screen in 1978, some of the film’s casting decisions tickled the fancies of both old-time radio devotees and classic TV fans. One such decision was assigning the role of Rydell High School principal, Miss McGee, to character great Eve Arden. Arden had made […]

Turner Classic Movies occasionally schedules a 1956 film noir directed by Fritz Lang entitled While the City Sleeps. In the film, a troubled young man (John Drew Barrymore) has embarked on a killing spree (earning him the nickname “The Lipstick Killer”), and the heir to a magazine empire (Vincent Price) challenges three editors who head […]

The day that writer Don Quinn crossed paths with Jim Jordan at WENR in Chicago would prove to be a most fortuitous one for both men…and for Jim’s wife Marian as well. The Jordans arrived on radio by way of vaudeville. Although radio didn’t pay nearly as well as stage work at the time, both […]

It was on this date in 1941 that Captain Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond began what the announcer referred to as “his American adventures” on Mutual Radio. The need to stress “American adventures” stems from the fact that Captain Drummond (nicknamed “Bulldog” because of his tenacity) originally hailed from our neighbor on the other side of the […]

On this date in 1943, the first of several attempts to introduce radio to one of the most memorable of literary sleuths got underway. Nero Wolfe, the well-upholstered creation of author Rex Stout, was introduced in 1934 in the pages of Fer-De-Lance. The first of 33 novels (and 39 short stories) introduced the eccentric bon […]

The Man of Steel made his comic book debut in Action Comics on April 18, 1938, and less than a year later (in January of 1939), the costumed superhero creation of Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster would conquer the world of newspaper comic strips as well. But the induction of Superman—“strange visitor from the planet […]

Habitual old-time radio listeners have no difficulty identifying their favorite actors and actresses; while some radio thesps possessed the talent to disguise their voices in the roles they were assigned, others have a distinctive “tell” that gives them away immediately. There’s no mistaking, for example, Frank Lovejoy in a part. Lovejoy wasn’t able to master […]

The August 11, 1941 broadcast of CBS’ Forecast marked the first time the character of Hopalong Cassidy was offered up to radio audiences as a potential series, much in the same manner as fellow B-Western cowboy Gene Autry did with his Melody Ranch in January of 1940. Since the Forecast presentation did not feature the […]